My long-ago years of pursuing a professional criminal career as a counterfeiter required me to be peripatetic — I had to frequently (sometimes weekly) move from city to city and state to state in my attempts to avoid Secret Service agents, who, on the national level police credit card forgers. Of course I wasn’t always successful (someone always snitched) and that’s where bail bondsmen came in.
At one point I probably knew as many bail bondsmen across the United States as anyone. Real pros, when they know they’re going to be plying their nefarious trade in a jurisdiction, get acquainted with a bail bondsman (and leave them some kind of deposit) before they get arrested, which makes getting out of jail much easier. Once I became a seasoned pro I learned I didn’t need to know a bail bondsman in every city, all I needed was a relationship with one really good one — in my case Don Shury in Cleveland — who had a national reputation. If and when I got popped anywhere in the country, one call to Don and I was back on the street in a matter of a day or two, if not hours. Of course Don was holding a considerable sum of mine in gold bullion. Fair is fair.
But the bail bonding business has changed in some parts of the country. Someone got a wild hair up their ass and came up with the idea that instead of a person in custody (or their family members and friends) paying a bail bondsman to get them out, 10 percent of the bond amount set by the bond commissioner could be paid directly to the court, thus cutting the bondsmen out of the deal, and effectively putting them out of business. But there’s one huge problem: in real life this doesn’t work out too well.
Bondsmen basically are insurance agents who put up a “power,” essentially an insurance policy to the court that assures the defendant will appear on the date they are scheduled to be in front of the judge. If the person fails to appear, a “capias” (an arrest warrant) is issued. The bondsmen, in order to avoid paying off on the insurance policy, then goes out and finds the person and takes them into custody. Now, in the jurisdictions where they’ve done away with bondsmen, it’s up to law enforcement to go out and collar someone who skips out on their court date.
The problem is, unless the miscreant is an armed and dangerous menace to society, law enforcement is far too busy catching new criminals to go chase those they’ve already caught once. Which kind of makes sense when you think about it: Their thinking is something along the lines of, “Hey, the judge let him go; let the judge go out and find him.”
In cities like Chicago and Philadelphia (and the whole state of Florida) where they’ve done away with bondsmen, the streets are teeming with fugitives that the police don’t have the time, manpower, or desire to chase after. And guess what, these dudes are out there committing more crimes.
Nonetheless someone has the same wild hair up their ass in Cuyahoga County… in spite of the fact the 10 percent system is an abject failure where it’s currently being used, they still want to institute it here… and it’s a guarantee the results will be the same.
Now, you’d think that local bail bondsmen would try to head this off, for their own survival and the safety of the public… but you’d be wrong. While Don Shury, when he was in the business, was a great guy and smart businessman, the fact is, most people wouldn’t piss on a bail bondsman if they were on fire.
When your business is dealing with worried (and often broke) family members coming to you and begging for help to get their loved ones out of jail, it doesn’t take long for a small-minded person to get real arrogant… they can get to think their shit don’t stink real fast.
And that’s what’s occurring in Cuyahoga County. The table is being set to put bail bondsmen out of business, and not only are these assholes whistling past the graveyard, they continue to exhibit the same arrogant behavior that makes the powers that be want to put them out of business in the first place. Of course when it’s too late you’ll hear crying and wailing and gnashing of teeth emanating from the area around the Justice Center, but by then no one will be listening.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.